18/12/2007
Well, it's taken some time (9,000 miles to be exact) but Debbie finally had to concede that cooking was not a major priority. The front that Debbie alluded to in the previous blog turned into a full blown storm. We sailed for about 7-8 hours with the number 3 reef and the headsail heavily reefed - the southeaster on our beam. The wind and seas steadily increased until we had a fairly consistent 40 - 50 knots of full on Tasman Sea how's your father. We had to get the mainsail down because we were overpowered and sailing far to fast: 8 - 9 knots in 30 to 40 foot breaking seas on the beam. With about 10% of the genoa out we settled down around 5 knots which was much easier on the boat and us. However it was bedlam down below with us and everything else being tossed around relentlessly. We have a shelf running the length of our cabin that holds all our linen and other miscellaneous things (sextant, printer etc.. - the usual stuff you squeeze into a linen closet). At about 3:00AM we were hit by a particularly large wave just as it broke on our port bow. There was a fantastic crash, the boat shuddered, picked herself up and continued on. I crawled forward (I had been resting on the cabin sole in the saloon) to find this shelf had broken away from its housing and crashed down on the bed. As Deb said later - it was lucky we weren't asleep in there.
As it has demonstrated before, this great boat came through this horribly uncomfortable 36 hours unscathed (except for the bookshelf).
The wind has died now and the seas with it. Now as we are only 184 miles from home we have a light easterly behind us and we are struggling to make 5 knots wing and wing. We are hopeful that the predicted northeasterly will harden up later today and we can pick up our pace again for an arrival in Sydney tomorrow night.
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Comments [4]
17/12/2007
After much analysis of weather we have decided to turn directly towards home and bypass Lord Howe. It would have been exciting to go into the beautiful lagoon and Lord Howe Customs had replied to us, and were all ready for us and told us we could get in and out in a day. Late last night after analyzing all the weather, it showed we would be getting some much needed wind so we would be able to sail most of the way, therefore negating the need to go to Lord Howe for fuel. Weather faxes and grib files were absolutely correct and for most of last night and today we'd been having a great sail. If we'd gone to Lord Howe, Greg was concerned about a low pressure system developing over LHI, tomorrow, our arrival day, so we wanted to miss that. Also there is the chance of strong southerlies like the one all you Sydneysiders experienced on Sunday afternoon forecast for Dec 22/23. So that also changed our plans for a Newcastle check in, as we don't want to get stuck in Newcastle with a 30 knot southerly - we can handle that if its on the beam on the direct route from where we are now but we don't want to bash into it, knowing that Christmas is fast approaching.
My Dad was trying to get a flight to Lord Howe Island, he said he'd sail "Volare" back, so we could fly home for Christmas. No way! the rest of the family said that Greg would not allow anyone else to skipper "Volare" into Sydney. Then, after trying for flights anyway, and not being able to get one, he said he would have a better chance of being hit by lightning than being able to get to Lord Howe at this time of the year. So he's disappointed we wont be picking him up there or in Newcastle but understands he'll have lots of other chances of sailing on "Volare".
Our families were getting nervous that we wouldn't make it home for Christmas, at the rate we're going now we should make it into Sydney by Thursday or Friday, we'll then need to complete entry formalities(waiting to hear from Customs where we go to do that) before proceeding to Drummoyne.
STOP PRESS: Exciting news, our first big fish of the trip. Just as we were finishing lunch, Milton noticed the fishing line that the master fisherman, Milton, put out was jerking, (the line is attached to a shock cord as the ratchet had broken many miles ago)low and behold we caught a beautiful 4 kg Dorado. So tonight, we had Dorado in a garlic, ginger and lemon sauce, tomorrow we'll have him Sashimi style for lunch and then we still have enough for a couple more meals. Milton was so excited, I have the photo to prove it and also a photo of the boys trying to clean up all the mess as we had a little problem getting him off the gaff.
433 miles to go now, we hit a front about 17:30, so we've had lots of rain again and about 30-35 knots of wind. Have just had all hands up on deck to put our new 3rd reef in the main. Our new friend, the single hander is coping well, he's about 55 miles south east of us and after I spoke to him on the radio a little while ago, he was also going to go up and put a 3rd reef in his main. Thank goodness for sailmail, which he doesn't have, so we offered to email his wife and keep her informed of his position. She was just so relieved to hear from us today, gave us a million thanks. I'll update her tonight and let her know Paul is doing well.
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15/12/2007
If we were still going to Lord Howe Island we'd only have 240 miles to go, unfortunately with Christmas nearly on top of us, we just haven't got the time. What a shame, it has been a goal of ours for many years to sail into the beautiful lagoon on Lord Howe; it'll just have to wait till another trip. Funny, it always used to seem so far to sail, but now we've traveled over so many sea miles, Lord Howe from Australia seems a snack. We may just get close enough on this trip to get a sighting of Ball's Pyramid.
Newcastle is 575 miles away, although now we have lost the wind, so we have done a lot of motoring since yesterday, the clouds and rain went away, the sun came out, the seas calmed down, BUT we lost the wind. Once the boat speed gets down under 4 knots, Greg decides to put the engine on (so we can be home for Xmas), unfortunately too we have at least a one and sometimes a 2 knot current against us. Not fair, we're running downwind to Australia, the waves are pushing towards Australia, you'd think the current would be kind to us and also push us the right way but no, someone decides to make it a bit more challenging for you.
The above definitely has hindered one of the boats that left with us. Paul is an Australian, a single hander, who bought a little tiny 31ft trimaran in the Bay of Islands with the aim to sail it to Australia. It has a 5 horse power outboard as its auxilliary propulsion, only a wind generator (now we only have 5 knots of wind, so his wind generator would hardly be working)! He has no other form of battery charging, no fridge or freezer and now his auto-pilot has broken down so he'll be hand steering the rest of the way to Australia (we're half way home). When we spoke to him on the radio this morning, his position was the same as he had given us at 7:30pm last night, so he has been drifting around in the same area all night.
Auto pilot failures, in our experience have been the major source of problems for yachts on the crossing. Never, never, never contemplate a crossing without some form of backup.
This is Greg writing now.
Yes, we are stuck in the middle of a huge high pressure system that extends from the East coast of Australia to New Zealand. That means light and variable winds from all points of the compass. We need to maintain an average speed of about 5.5 knots in order to get into Newcastle, clear in, then get to Sydney before Xmas Eve (we have to do our Xmas shopping!!). This means motoring more than we would like. We topped up our fuel tank from the remaining spare fuel we carry yesterday which gives us about 80 hours of motoring. Already, since then we have been motoring for 17 hours and there appears to be no change in the weather conditions for the next few days. We can't motor all the way to Australia, so something has to give.
We are currently considering a contingency plan of stopping at Lord Howe Island in order to take on more fuel. It's about 50 miles out of the way of our rhumbline course to Newcastle and we have changed course to motor in that direction - about two days away. If things change for the better over the next 24 hours we will go back to plan A and continue straight to Newcastle.
Watch this space. #
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